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As someone who taught critical thinking at university level to both students and teachers, I find few issues more lacking in critical thought than the debate over marriage.   As a strong supporter of the traditional view of marriage, it is no surprise that I would find the arguments of those who support nontraditional forms of marriage lacking, but I frequently find the arguments of supporters lacking as well.

The reasons for this are many.  One, of course, is the generally low level of critical thinking found in society in general.  Despite the claims of academicians, people are not taught to think in most schools.  Rather than thinking for themselves, they are taught to accept what academics say, either directly, or in the modern equivalent of the Papal Bull, the scientific study.

Another big source of confusion is the overlapping concerns of the state and religion. For many the institution of marriage is primarily a religious commitment, done in a church, with vows taken before God. Yet it is also licensed and controlled by the state.

Finally, there is the fact that marriage has been so universally accepted and so ingrained into our society and culture that most have just taken it for granted. It is just what people do; with little thought as to why. 

All of this combined leads to a great deal of confusion. So over the next few post I will try to clear up some of this confusion, and to outline some reasons why I support the traditional view of marriage and as a result oppose non-traditional forms such as same-sex marriage and polygamy.   This formulation is not accidental. In many respects, it is not so much that I oppose same-sex marriage and polygamy; rather it is that I support the traditional view of marriage, marriage between one man and one woman.

So first, I will attempt to clear up some of the misconceptions that surround this issue. Then I will attempt to outline a case supporting the traditional view of marriage, finally I will attempt to answer some of the more common arguments used to support non-traditional forms of marriage.

 The first thing that I want to clear up is the confusion caused by the overlapping of government and religion on this issue.   There is little question that both are involved in marriage and have been for quite some time. Within the Judeo-Christian religious tradition, marriage has always had religious overtones.  Despite the claims of a few, marriage is between a man and woman, the model being the established with the first couple: Adam and Eve. (Genesis 2:18-25)

For the most part, government’s role in marriage has been at best secondary and at times non-existent.  Why should there be otherwise?  Marriage was maintained by the church; enforced by the standards of the community as a whole.  When communities were small and closely knit, where everyone knew everyone else, there was little role for government to play.

This began to change in the 18^th century, one notable example being the Marriage Act of 1753 in England, which was a huge movement of the government into area of marriage.  The industrial Revolutions brought about not only great improvements in the standard of living, but also great disruptions in the culture. While the exact causes are disputed, illegitimacy skyrocketed. There was also a growing awareness of the period of childhood as a time in which children learn and are prepared to become adults.

Few would question that governments have a legitimate interest in preserving their existence, and part of this is the development of the next generation of citizens. This is the justification for the existence of public schools.  Likewise, government has an interest in ensuring that children are raised in the best environment and this is the main justification for government entering into the realm of marriage. 

Remove this interest and you remove the main reason for government regulating marriage at all. The other major issue would be property rights, but if viewed as an issue of property, there is little to marriage, at least from a government perspective, than any other contract and thus little reason for government involvement.  In fact as far as property, government marriage laws are already inadequate as is demonstrated by the increasing use of pre-nuptial  agreements.

Despite the key role of religion, the current debate over marriage is not a religious debate. Frankly, from a religion point of view, there are religious groups that do permit polygamy and same-sex marriage, and such marriage can be, have been, and are being done.  There is, and should be, nothing illegal about this.  What these marriages do not have is the sanction, and recognition of the government.

As such, what is really at issue here is state sanctioned of marriage, not the religious definition of marriage.   Since this is an act of government, it is by definition a public act and not just a matter between those involved in the marriage.   To request the sanction of the government is by definition to make it a public issue, and not just a private matter.

So, even though there is a strong religion component to marriage, in the remaining parts I will restrict my arguments to what is really in dispute, the government role in marriage.  Because of this, I will not post the remaining parts of this discussion on my religious blog.  Those who are reading this on consider.org will need to go to my general blog (www.hushbeck.com/blog ) to read the remaining posts.

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While it has drifted off the radar screen at the moment Tim Morgan at Christianity Today’s political blog recently raised a question that is sure to come back into the forefront as a hot divisive issue, what to do with the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants and their children.  That it is coming back as an issue is clear from President Obama’s plans to grant them citizenship, an effort that news reports say will begin next month and last through the summer. 

Morgan’s question was not so much the policy issue directly, but asks the question in terms of “What would Jesus do?” My thinking on this question has always been somewhat mixed.  On the one hand, it is a great question and one that we should all ask far more often than we do.  But if that’s the case, then what is the problem with the question? 

My problems begin when the question enters public discussions, and are for a number of reasons.  The biggest problem is that your answer to the question will strongly depend on your knowledge of Jesus, and even for Christians in general, the actual knowledge of Jesus is somewhat lacking, and even more so for the public at large.  While it can be very valuable to struggle with this privately in prayer and contemplation before God, as a general rule, the more people involved, the less prayer and contemplation you will have. 

I think it can be stated as a general rule that nobody really knows what Jesus would do in the case of such public policy issues.  In fact, the verse that would seem to apply the most is, Jesus’ comment in Matthew 22:21 concerning taxes, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

The problem with trying to figure out what Jesus would do in any particular issue of public policy, is that we live in a world corrupted by sin and governed temporally by sinful people.  Issues of public policy such as illegal immigration are basically tinkering at the margins.  Jesus would go to the root of the problem, and when he was finished, the answer to the question of “What would Jesus do about illegal immigrants would be : nothing, for there would not be an Illegal immigrants issue to begin with. 

This is not to say that we should have open boarders and allow everyone in, it is to point out the reality that the roots of the Illegal immigration problem are vast and deep.  There is the economic, political, and social problems in the countries from which the illegal immigrants come.  If every country in the world had the freedom and prosperity of the United States, there would not be a problem. 

Then there is the breakdown of law in this country that has allow the problem to grow such that there are now so many here.  If there were only a few thousand illegal immigrants in the country who had only been here a few months, again this would not be an issue.  But for a variety of reasons, government at many levels have ignored the growing problem until now there are millions of illegal immigrants here, many for decades. 

So to come in now and ask “What would Jesus do?” is somewhat like asking what would Jesus do to deal with  his past sins?  He wouldn’t do anything because he would never be in that position.  When he does come back he will not tinker with minor issues such as illegal immigration. He will address the root issues and eliminate the problems that cause it in the first place. 

One other problem I frequently have with this question comes from the view of God that currently predominates the public square: God is Love.  The predominant view of God is Love, often expresses itself in such questions making them almost “What would Love do?”  In this case wouldn’t love say we should have compassion for the illegal immigrants?

While certainly true, that is not the only attribute of God.  We sinful humans are never very good at balancing, and it takes a lot of effort.  When balancing something on the end of your finger, if you get distracted or inattentive, it will fall.  The same goes for the church balancing the attributes of God.  God is Love, but he is also Justice.  Psalm 101 starts, “I will sing of your love and justice; to you O Lord, I will sing praise.”

Love says we should have compassion for the illegal immigrants, but justice says that they have broken the law.  Then there are all the other attributes of God, such as Righteousness and Holiness.  So what would Jesus do about the illegal immigrants and their families?  Ultimately I don’t know. 

I do think that we need to approach the issue beginning with all the attributes of God, not just Love that would let them all stay, or Justice that would throw them all out.  I also think that any solution would have to focus on the root causes that has allow the problem to get out of hand in the first place, though unlike Jesus, here we are somewhat limited to control over our own country, though we can work to spread economic freedom and liberty to other countries.  Still while easy to say, working these out into actual public policy will take a lot of contemplation and prayer. 

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.

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As I point out in my forthcoming book, Preserving Democracy, one of the things that surprised Alexis de Tocqueville, when he came to what was then the new country of America, was religion. As he wrote in his classic, Democracy in America, “Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention;” As de Tocqueville noted, it was not just that Christianity played an important role in peoples’ lives, it played a key, though not direct, role in the political life of the country as well.

“Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but nevertheless is must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of free institutions.”

In the system of checks and balances set up by our founding fathers one of the checks was religion, not as a part of the government, but as an important force apart from the government. This way it could serve as a checks on government, lest government get too large and itself infringe on liberty. As John Adams put it, “Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people; it is wholly inadequate for any other.”

Given this it should be of no surprise that those who push the hardest for the removal of religion from public discourse, also tend to push equally hard for a larger role for government. By definition a larger government means less liberty, but in the upside down world we live in they often cast their attack on, and suppression of, religious belief in the terms of freedom.

This sort of inverted thinking is once again on display in the Obama administration’s decision to rescind the federal regulation that protects people’s “freedom of conscience.” The regulation prevents health care professionals who are morally opposed to abortions from being forced to participate in them.

It is interesting that those who so loudly proclaim themselves to be pro-choice are so quick to deny choice to anyone who does not agree with them, and to do so in the name of freedom. The reaction of some supporters of the administration’s actions was that health care professionals “should perform the duty needed to the best of the patients interest or change profession.”

Of course this suits them very well. They would love to get rid of doctors and nurses that point out inconvenient facts, such that the fetus is not just a lump of tissue, but a genetically distinct human that is by any normal definition of life, alive. Or facts such as in the case of some late term abortions a living human does not need to be aborted as it could live on its own. Such facts do put a damper on the party line. Once only those who supported abortion remained, then they could say, “but doctors and nurses don’t have any objection to abortion, why do you?”

If freedom of conscience is forbidden here, how about other more controversial areas? One state already allows euthanasia. If the supreme court were to suddenly find a right to die in some hitherto unchecked penumbras of the Constitution, would all doctors and nurses be required to kill their patients when they requested it? If not, why not?

We have seen this principle in other areas. In Massachusetts, the Catholic Charities of Boston was one of the nation’s oldest adoption agencies and specialized in finding homes for children who were hard to place. But they were forced to close by the state. Why? Because in the new age of enlightenment, the idea that the best way to raise children was for them to have a father and a mother in a loving committed relationship, could no longer be allowed. This outdated notion has been officially declared to be discrimination against same-sex couples.

The more these new ideas of rights and freedom are imposed on America, the less free people will become, and the freedom to choose certain professions will be eliminated for Christians of conscience. Medicine is clearly threatened by this change. It is not hard to see that teachers will not be far behind as they will increasingly be forced to push same-sex relationships as an equal option for children. Anything less would be discriminatory.

Even professions one might not expect will be affected. For example, in New Mexico a Christian photographer found herself before the New Mexico Human Rights Division when she declined to photograph a commitment ceremony for a same sex couple. As a result she facing a possible injunction forbidding her from ever again refusing such a ceremony, in addition to thousands of dollars in legal fees.

The real danger with so many of the radical secularists is that they don’t just have opinions they express and argue for, they tend to cast everything in terms of rights. As such, to disagree with their opinion is to infringe on some right and is therefore automatically discriminatory. Since it is discriminatory, the power of the state can and should be used to suppress it. Throughout history, people have always been free to do what the ruling power agreed with. Unless we are vigilant, that will be the only freedom we have left in America.

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity: a Faith Based on Fact.